Aria
by charlotteschaos
Summary: Draco teaches Harry to appreciate Opera. Written for thepimpcane's Christmas Challenge 2004: Music.


Though Harry often protested, he rather enjoyed Malfoy's attempts to, as he put it, "make him less of a heathen." He'd opened his eyes to a whole new world of art, music, and literature that he supposed he knew was there, but had never really had the opportunity to explore on his own. To Draco's credit, in spite of the occasional snide comment, he showed Harry these things freely and with a contagious passion. Draco's attitude about the arts worked far more magic than the performances and pieces ever could. Harry's growing enchantment was enhanced by Draco's enthusiasm; though, Harry would never share this knowledge with his lover.

"Opera?" Harry asked dubiously. "I heard that was boring."

"Where did you hear that from? Your Muggle relatives? Pft," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand and a theatrical roll of his eyes. "Muggles do not comprehend opera. They thoughtlessly filched it from the Wizarding world, without an understanding of the magnificence and magic of the art form."

Harry pursed his lips in his displeasure at having to endure another tirade about how insipid Muggles were. Not that Harry had the best experience with his relatives, but he thought there was certainly merit in their way of life. It wasn't the Muggles fault they were born without magic. Although he figured that the tirades were better than Draco's prior genocidal attitude towards non-magic folk. Baby steps. "So wizards don't sing in opera?"

"Of course they sing, Harry! But that is not all. They weave magic with their intonations; each note and syllable is an enchantment. What an opera does is transport you to another time and place. The language and composition are the incantation. When it is done properly, the tongue or arena doesn't matter. You will be swept away to other ambits. A few Muggle singers manage to happen upon this either by accident or latent magic in their bloodlines," Draco postulated. "Real opera is not boring, Harry. It transcends life and reality," lectured Draco as he pulled his wand and swiped it at a strange stone apparatus that looked part organic and part metallic. "I'll skip you to my favorite aria," he stated with a few more flicks of his wand.

For a moment, Harry was simply watching Draco move towards him until the blond swept the other boy up into his arms and dragged them to the divan by the fire. Sitting next to him, Draco rested his head on Harry's shoulder and reached up to press the other boy's temple against the top of his head. "Close your eyes," Draco whispered as the melody started to ascend from the improbable receiver.

The notes lapped over him in waves, like the first tidings of a dream. It was hard to express what he saw; the motion, the swirling, everything shifted in on itself and resolved to a woman's lament about a lover lost at war. Why had he gone to war? Why had fortune destined him to be the great hero? She was left alone. Bereft in a cruel world without him. Still the days shifted and the flow of the words and notes moved Harry. It was cathartic to feel this woman's pain, to be a part of it and to feel her anguish and release.

Her skirts swirled and billowed and her heart fluttered almost tangibly. It was hard to express in words what he saw, which was the point of this manner of expression, he supposed. He could see her light, her pain, and her extreme sorrow showered her platform in elegant cascades like a dream. A luridly colorful, heartrending dream, in which worlds shifted, collided, danced upon one another. She was grateful for her time with him, and regretted her loss. Her pain was not her own. She beat her breast in front of the arches of a shadowy cathedral under the moonlight to howl her suffering. Guttering candles illuminated the stained glass Saints who peered down at her indifferently. Even the church's exalted were too consumed by their own passions and sufferings to pay mind to the ravages of her torment. The two boys clutched one another with the same passion that she exuded. They both shared her pain; the pain that surged from the magical manifestation forced empathic reactions from the boys. They felt her torturous anguish as if it was their own; as it would belong to anyone that heard and watched as the enchantment of the opera took hold of it's audience.

It was elegance, it was truth, it was poetry, and it was all of those things in action. As the strains ended, so did the woman's mourning. Her life cut short by nothing else but a broken heart that slowly strangled and ended her. And after the emotions subsided and the boys were left in their sobbing silence, all that which was left was the slow rocking motion of their comforting embrace.


End file.
